Atlas Arteria Limited (ASX:ALX)
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Apr 29, 2026, 4:10 PM AEST
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Earnings Call: H1 2021
Aug 26, 2021
H1 20 21 Results Presentation Conference Call. All participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Graham Bevans, Chief Executive Officer.
Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you all for joining Atlas Arteria's First Half twenty twenty one Results Call. I'm joined today on this call by Nadim Lenny, our CFO. I'd like to acknowledge and pay respect to the indigenous people We're the traditional custodians of the lands on which we meet today and across all the lands on which our businesses operate. I also pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
Today, I will outline the key highlights of the half with Nadine providing a summary of the key financial matters. Following that, I will provide an overview of our strategy, our opportunity sets and our key priorities. Moving to Slide 4, we have continued to deliver against our strategy with our team demonstrating strong commitment and focus In achieving continued success in developing our businesses, our operating environments are showing positive signs of continued recovery, Although in this environment, cautious optimism seems appropriate. The resilience of our businesses comes through on Slide 5. Traffic seasonally adjusted across our businesses increased by 10% to 15% in June compared to January, With heavy vehicle traffic for the half consistent with 2019, we completed over $250,000,000 in capital projects Across our businesses, with 3 major improvement projects in France completed during or shortly after the half And now open to traffic.
We also made some important progress on our strategic objectives, Completing the Varno Capital Restructure, Allowing Distributions TO Flow and A Significant Improvement in Value. At Dallas Greenway, we achieved an increase in tolls for the majority of our traffic of 5.3%, Giving an overall average increase in tolls across the day of 4.5% in June. In combination, all of this has allowed us to provide guidance of $0.155 for the first half of twenty twenty one. Moving to the financial overview on Slide 6. During the 1st 4 months of the half, we had COVID lockdowns in Europe And significant constraints in Virginia.
In that context, we achieved a 20.5% increase in EBITDA from 2020 15.7 percent below 2019. You can see on Slide 7, The French and German mobility data, which shows the significant recovery in traffic following the relaxation of lockdowns from May. Recent data since 30 June shows the normal increase in recreational traffic with the summer holidays And consequent reduction in workplace traffic. This has included the return of intra European holiday traffic, which is assisted to achieve higher traffic volumes. Importantly, in the EU, France and Germany have shown a strong commitment to vaccination, Particularly in France, where greater incentives and in some industries compulsory vaccination have been implemented.
Importantly, the percentages shown here are the total population, not the eligible population, Which is often quoted in Australian data. The equivalent in Australia today would be 43% first dose, 24% fully on a full population basis. So as you can see, Europe is incredibly well advanced in vaccination relative To Australia, the no traffic as you can see on Slide 9 was constrained by lockdowns in the first half. Recovery is now well underway with post-thirty June traffic returning to near 2019 levels. On Slide 10, Dallas Greenway traffic continued to recover through the half, tracking the gradually increasing workplace mobility Shown in the graph on this slide.
With schools closed for most of the last year, vaccinations of high schools Ramping up in Loudoun County for the new school year with an aim of returning to in class learning. If history is any guide, physical attendance at schools together with the encouragement of businesses for employees to return to the office Should result in further improvement in our traffic. On Slide 11, During the half, we've continued our capital programs with over $250,000,000 in expenditure. 3 enhancement projects at APRR And now completed and others including the West End project at Dallas Greenway are well underway. Moving on to Slide 12, we've continued to advance our sustainability priorities.
These are safety, people, Customers and community and the environment. We are working towards having clear sustainability Targets in place by the end of 2021 based on these established priorities. On Slide 13, By way of example, we are showing the rollout of high or very high power electric vehicle charging stations at our service areas across our French network. As of 30th June, we have installed charging stations at 51% of our service areas. And by the end of 'twenty two, We'll have installed charging stations at all service areas.
This program is now supported by funding directly from the French government, which is committed to deploy 100,000 new charging points throughout our country by the end of 2021. I will now hand over to Nadine, who will take you through the financial performance for the half.
Thanks, Brian. Let's turn to Slide 15. And this is the Atlas ITERIA income statement. Excluding notable items, which are really the non operational or non recurring items, as you can see there, our Financial performance has nearly returned to 2019 pre COVID level. And the primary driver of this was the performance of APRR, Which was substantially better than what it was in the first half of last year, and that's despite the strict lockdowns that were in place that Graeme just talked about.
We also owned, of course, the 31% stake for the full half this half, whereas our average holding for the last period was around 29 And that's because we acquired the additional 6% in March last year. The other thing that impacted the performance of ARR just coming through our income Statement was the strengthening of the Aussie dollar versus the euro. So performance actually would have been better overall than 2019 if the As a reminder, the performance of ATRR comes through the share of profits from associates So of the 73% increase you can see there, around 50% was from the underlying performance of APRR, And I'll touch on that in the next slide. 23% was from the ownership change that I just talked about. 14% Words associated with the accounting adjustments just as you move through that holding structure.
And these were offset by around a 13% reduction in value
There are
probably 3 other factors, which also led to our financial performance. First of all, the reduction in finance costs with the removal of the holding company's debt that we did last year And the reduction in debt is a result of our capital restructure at Bano Tunnel. 2nd thing is the reduction in amortization on the tolling concession at the Dulles Greenway, with of course the impairments that have come through in the last couple of years. And you can see there that there's around a 23% reduction in that cost line. Good news, after the past, there's no impairment for the period.
First thing was the significant appreciation also of the Aussie dollar versus The U. S. Dollar. So I think from memory that strengthened from around 0.65 average to around 0.77 in the first half of this year. So the performance of the Grainway has obviously been impacted on translation.
Now that impacts various different line items as we pull the Grainway results Into the consolidated account. But in our overall sense, it's probably only made say around a $3,000,000 So it's not material in a total sense, just on an individual line item basis. Then in terms of the notable items for this last half, You can see there a $49,900,000 expense, which is an accounting adjustment relating to the capital restructure at Barno Tunnel. It represents the removal of fair value adjustments that were allocated to the legacy debt when Atlas Arteria purchased its final 30% stake in 2018. The capital restructure actually brings forward, I think, as we spoke about in February, the probability of us receiving cash flows.
So this accounting adjustment has been somewhat offset by, you can see a $34,900,000 recognition of unused Tax boxes. Now they weren't recognized previously because there was limited probability of their use in the medium term. Just as a reminder, the AUD 49,000,000 to AUD34 million are accounting adjustments only. And the real value as a result of the capital restructure is in the substantial increase in the unrealized value of the business, which we get from the lower gearing and of course bringing forward those cash flows as I just mentioned. While I'm on this slide, I will now highlight the corporate costs, as I'm sure some of you have seen.
They have increased by 110% half on half, But we do expect that, that number for the year could be up to that $30,000,000 level. Consistent with what we highlighted in February, In the second half, we will have the full impact of the uplift in insurance costs and the people and traffic capability. Now I mentioned the improved performance of ATRR, so let's move on then to Slide 16 and talk about that. Revenue increased primarily as a result of traffic. It's worthwhile knowing that the comparative period is a little unusual.
You'd expect with toll increases The revenue would increase by more than that 19% was traffic increased by. But as you would have seen back on Slide 8, as referenced by Graham, The toll mix has changed. So with the increase in traffic period on period coming primarily from light vehicle traffic And light vehicles pay on average around a third of the toll paid by heavy vehicles. We're just not seeing the compounding uplift that you might otherwise expected. Interestingly, we've also had a slight change in average tonics in the heavy vehicle category as well leading through there.
In terms of operating costs, the primary drivers behind increase, there are variable costs, of course, which increase or decrease in line with So given the traffic is on up, top collection costs, TAT taxes, they all go up as well. There was also a $2,400,000 increase in the Afage management fee, so there was 6 months of that fee this year versus 4 months of last year. No real change in the actual fee on annual basis at Telco. We also had some high linked to maintenance costs coming through there. These are partially offset with a $5,000,000 reduction in the CET taxes.
You may remember that the CET tax Calculation changed last year, so effectively there's now a 2% rather than a 3% cap on the net operating revenue. Just running out the performance of APRR, you can see a small reduction in finance costs and lower debt balances. And in terms of the increase in provisions, it's really just bringing this back in line with what you might expect to see, minimal changes to construction indexes and no change to the discount factor Other than what we have historically where the composition of the various cost And tax line items for APRR in our investor reference pack. So, in terms of the sense that you're interested, encourage you to go and have a look at that. And this was also released to the ASX If you move to slide 17, we'll just continue on and perhaps round out CapEx performance for AII continued to deliver on its different capital commitments as required under the concession.
As we mentioned at the half year, there were some delays on projects Due to COVID restrictions, however, post all of the shutdowns last year, work has really continued on with all the various safety arrangements in place, And there's been no significant change to our CapEx guidance. Rounding out the performance of ARR, just Ending on the financial position, let's move on to Slide 18. As I mentioned earlier, with reductions in net debt, The balance sheet at APRR is really just getting stronger. At the month, though, it remains rated A- by S and P and Fitch. You can see that net debt at both ACI and SRO is at around that €8,000,000,000 sorry, €8,000,000,000 market 30 June And that's down around, I think, dollars 300,000,000 since 30 June last year and around $100,000,000 since December.
And look, with the continued reductions in net debt, there is obviously a growing capacity per debt within the structure, which if opportunities do become available, Then APRR has significant and growing capacity to fund. The Juliet in commercial paper has been refinanced in half 2. And some of you might have noticed that the amount outstanding in commercial paper At 30 June was less than what you might have seen in December and prior June. The commercial paper program still is in place. The market is strongly supportive of APRR.
Paper is still being issued at needed interest rate. It is a cash management So the outstanding through ebb and flow during the year. So now let's turn on to Slide 19 and we'll move on to Vinyl Tunnel. Due to the law of small numbers, The EBITDA reduced by 12.5% compared to last the half one last year, but the operating cost increase, as you can see, was small. So really the important story here is following the capital restructure at Varnotel, which we completed in March, We have now received our distribution of €2,500,000 It might seem small, but it is consistent with our expectations And Andy is in line with the guidance we provided in February, adjusted, of course, for the relative traffic numbers.
And it really just shows that there is an appropriate Financial structure and we're really pleased that we were able to deliver on that strategic objective. In our prepared remarks, we've moved to the U. S. And the Greenway, which is on Slide 20. As you can see here, despite the lower Operating revenue was 2% higher for the period, which reflects the 5.3% increase in off peak tolls, Which we managed to secure and were implemented in May.
And you can see the growth in off peak versus peak traffic Coming through the numbers there from what Graham was talking about on Slide 10. Importantly, Given the financial results, liquidity within the business is still strong. With nearly $200,000,000 of cash available in the business across Even if we saw no growth in EBITDA for the next 10 halves, So effectively half one EBITDA for the next 10 half, we'd still be able to cover the debt service costs. Now This is a little bit of a silly case selection, particularly conservative, given traffic has been recovering, As Graham mentioned, so for half 1, it was down 40% compared with 2019.
After the
June, it's only down 30%. Now all other things being equal, that trend continuing, cash is not something today which is playing on my mind. Looking at Slide 21. Given the economic environment, we thought it would be helpful to show how the business is exposed to inflation and interest rates. As you can see, unit revenues or toll prices are highly correlated to inflation.
Each of the APRR Business And Adelaide have their toll prices explicitly linked to inflation by the concession agreement. Vano Tunnel also has Toll indexation outlined in its concession agreement and given historic traffic, tolls can actually index it greater than inflation. Solar Screenway has its own regime with a previous CPI plus style legislation. Now it's regulated. And we've provided some more details around all of this on Slide 42.
But over the next 2 years, toll price increases in off peak traffic mean that average tolls are So overall strong explicit and implicit revenue links to inflation. Margins as well, a rising inflationary environment also creates a really strong multiplier effect across the business in terms of value. Just looking at interest rates, as you can see there, the significant majority of debt across the businesses is fixed with long durations. As you can see, there's limited exposure Coming back then to the Atlas Arteria Corporate Business. And before I hand back to Graeme, I'll just quickly touch on our cash flow waterfall.
As you all know, our cash flows have historically been driven by ACRR, But very pleased, as I mentioned before, that we've now received our 1st distribution from Vinyl Tunnel. You will see this in our cash flow for half 2. In half 1, APRR was our only material source of cash flow. So We've done it a few times now, but I might just step you through the cash flows and a couple of things that are worthwhile pointing out. The consolidated APRR profit for Second half of twenty twenty was €356,000,000 and you can reference that through to our investor reference pack.
So starting on the left hand side of this slide, Atlasartorius' pro form a share of this is €111,000,000 The ACRR company net profit after tax, which drives the size of our distribution was €100,000,000 you can see there. If you remove the financing costs such as the debt facility of Fiery, MAP taxes, etcetera, you're left with the €98,100,000 which Atlas Attila received From that 2 in March, convert this to Aussie dollars, you get the $151,000,000 From a head office During the first half, we also received $700,000 in management fees from Envato Tunnel. This is not a distribution. It's just management fees associated with transfer pricing arrangements. We paid the ledger on Macquarie fees, the corporate costs and different cash flows, which gets us to the $128,500,000 net operating cash inflow.
So we have the $193,000,000 cash on the balance sheet at 31 So adding to that balance with the cash we used for the capital structure at Tohono Total, the distribution we had in April, We closed the half with AUD 133,000,000 equivalent. Just a couple of comments regarding distributions And cash to close-up from me. In terms of future guides beyond the upcoming distribution, There is no change to the policy position that we've had for the last 12 months. Distributions from ACRR and now Vinyl Tunnel We'll form the basis of Atlas Cytere's distribution in the near term. So in half 2, you should see a very similar waterfall to what you see here.
But of course, we'll have that distribution from Vinyl Tunnel added in here as well. I've talked about How have you been accounted for? And I suppose, again, for the moment nothing has changed. We want to make sure that at a corporate level, we maintain adequate liquidity to protect against risk, We're also supporting the immediate needs of the business. As we've also said before, we don't intend to keep cash on the balance sheet that cannot be used to create value for security holders.
And we're still holding cash, for example, for the possibility of a restructure at the Grand Line. In terms of gearing, we don't have any holding company debt currently. So we also have flexibility to support growth from that perspective. As we said before, holding company debt could be a future as we go forward, but it's just so important that we have the right structure so that we can support underlying growth also from the businesses, for example, at APRR. Back to Graeme, who will go through our growth priorities and outlook.
Thanks, Nadir. Our well established strategic framework continues to drive our actions within the business, both at an operational level and with an eye to the long term. During the half, we successfully restructured Varna to become a business which is now contributing as Nadine described, Cash flow towards our distributions. This was achieved with a small contribution of equity and a 25 year debt So at a very low interest rate of 2.07 percent for 75% of the outstanding debt. Payback of the equity contribution is expected to be fast and the value of the business has been significantly enhanced.
We achieved an increase in toll charges at Dallas Greenway through 2022 to 5.3% for 2021, With a further increase of 5% in 'twenty two on off peak tolls. This has increased the average tolls by around 4.5% In the month of June, we continue to develop a long term pathway to increase the value proposition For all stakeholders at Greenway, there's a hope of enabling legislation in the early 'twenty two Legislative session. Moving to Slide 25 in France, we've seen traffic recovering As high vaccination levels support increased mobility and travel through implementation of the EU Health Pass system, What we're noticing on our traffic patterns through July August is the arrival of A lot more traffic coming out of the Netherlands and Belgium, which has helped to increase the traffic Well beyond what we achieved in 2019 2020. The levels for the summer are up Heavy vehicle traffic Has performed extremely well over the half and was down only 1% on 2019. Inter European HV traffic To and from Spain and the rest of Europe, along with the Italian French trade transits through our network, increases in cross border HV traffic, Particularly from Spain, this compensated for a negative GDP result of minus 3.9% over the past 2 years in France.
We've been actively engaging on the $3,400,000,000 of road improvement opportunities outlined in the French government's 2018 infrastructure agenda. We continue to work with government at all levels in France to identify opportunities In the road transport networks of our regions, where we can provide innovative solutions for the benefit of all stakeholders. Our solutions are focused on developing a highly effective transport network that assists all levels of government in France To meet both their ESG and budgetary objectives. Moving to the U. S.
On Slide 26, We are well positioned to benefit from the return to office and school trends, which are evident in the Greater Washington area. We continue to work with stakeholders To develop a sound basis to restructure the DG business, our objective is to achieve legislative change to provide distance based tolling and other changes The result in a structure that benefits all stakeholders and provides a mutually sustainable business moving forward. General elections to be held in November will be hard fought at the governor level without a clear favorite at this point in time. In closing, I'd like to sincerely thank all of our employees around the world who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to our operations And the successful implementation of our strategies in what continues to be an extremely difficult working environment. Our continuing priority is to pursue opportunities in each of our key businesses to create increasing sustainable cash flows We are lengthening our average concession life to create long term value for our security holders.
We have continued to deliver against our strategy, Focusing on the things we can control, working with our stakeholders to change the things we don't control, while maintaining focus on our ESG principles. This will not change. There are positive signs of continuing recovery in traffic in our markets and that gives us reason to be cautiously optimistic. With that, I'll return to the operator to allow any questions you may have.
Thank
We also request that you please limit your questions to only 1 or 2 at a time. Your first question is from Rob Koh from MS. Go ahead. Thank you.
Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for the presentation. Just wanted to drill a little bit Into the debt headroom at the APR level and how we should think about that. I mean, there's plenty of room to covenant. But I guess, is the A minus rating the constraint there?
And what are the metrics that roughly we could think about for debt headroom, please?
Sure. So perhaps I'll take that one as a starting point. So There is plenty of room as you know, Rob, within the A- rating for APRR to Vorrow significantly more money and we're talking in 1,000,000,000 of dollars. The rating agencies Don't tend to I think we've talked about this before. They don't tend to look at things on a year by from a year by year perspective.
They don't tend to look at things over the medium to long term. So we're in a So we're in a situation with APRR where at some point In the short to medium term, without any other changes, it might be upgraded from A Minor. So It is not being managed for the purposes of a rating. The capital structure is being managed for at the moment best value And to be able to balance that appropriate repayment profile against expected cash flows Coming through the business. So I think it will depend on the opportunity that comes up, but certainly, there is Plenty of capacity both within the rating and the way in which the rating agencies think about this.
And the shareholders are not Committed or particularly focused on a rating per se, we're focused on having the right capital structure for the longevity of the business.
Okay, great. That makes sense. Thank you. And then if I move to the Dulles Greenway, and you mentioned you're still working on the potential capital restructuring options there. Is there anything like legislative or operational that's a precondition of that, so that you have to get that out of the way before you could Pull the trigger on a capital restructure?
Rob, our focus is to achieve a legislative The change would give the optimal outcome and so that's our key focus. And as we Stated last year, we endeavored to get legislation through. It passed the lower house very convincingly And then got warehoused in the Senate. And we've been continuing to discuss the opportunity with both DDOT, the Secretary's Office And the members of the legislature, and we continue to engage with the local community, including Loudoun County. So We're working intensively on this and we'll continue to do so through the election cycle And then we'll be dealing with the new members and incoming Governor and Secretary When we know the outcomes of the election.
Okay, cool. Yes, that makes I guess I'm just trying to obviously, there's a lot of work going into the capital structure of the Dallas Greenway. I was just kind of wondering if there's Any kind of actions you can take, which are independent of those given that the policy process is outside your control, like I don't know, it was possible to Buy some of the 0 bond 0 coupons in the market and use them as sort of security to borrow money or anything like that?
There are options along those lines, but our priority and greatest value creation for our security holders It is to achieve the objective I described. Yes. Okay,
fair enough. Thank you very much. That's it for me.
Thank you. Your next question is from Ian Myles from Macquarie. Go ahead. Thank you.
I've got a very simple question. You invested $1,000,000 in other investments in your corporate cash flow. Just sort of wondering what it was? Is it the start of something new?
Sure, Ian. So that is primarily well, that's a mixture of things I suppose. From a head office perspective, a few of the different places that we talked about in February in terms of new staff coming on board, but also the investment in staff, In particular, around solutions on the Greenway.
Okay.
Thank you. Your next question is from Molly Erckhart from Berenjoy. Go ahead. Thank you.
Hi, Graham and Nadine. Just on the traffic at APR, you've shown a Really pleasing recovery of the European summer of over 5% above 2019 levels. Could you talk to how you're viewing traffic on that asset going forward? How much of that Thanks for the question. Obviously,
as Thanks for the question. Obviously, it's very pleasing to see an increase in traffic beyond 2019 For the summer, I think in some regards, it is brought about through people being unable to travel internationally as they might normally have We saw a similar trend last year, but it's increased even further this year through the very high levels of vaccination We are seeing our latest vaccination levels are 71% in France, the first dose The total population and 56% fully vaccinated and that's still on a growth relative to other parts of Europe. So, that's really leading to an opening up of the environment. And with the French government having a policy of setting its parameters of lockdowns, etcetera, around ICU beds, Even though cases have increased, the level of cases requiring ICU beds are much lower. So, We're nowhere near the targets and their intention is to remain open and other than where ICU beds At a critical level, they'll continue to keep the economy open.
That's the very key objective, which is a total Contradiction relative to what we in Australia see here.
Great. Thank you. And just one additional question there for Nadine. The APR profit cash waterfall, could you talk to what the $70,600,000 of consolidation adjustments relate Judy, just noting that that double of the 2 last half.
Sure. So the consolidation adjustments Come from removing the consolidation of the entities that sits below APRR and in their place Just having a look at the dividend flows that come up, for example, through ARIA to ARR. As a result of that, there was an intercompany restructure done, I it was in 2015, which sees somewhat of a permanent difference between consolidated and APRR only In that $80,000,000 to $100,000,000 per annum level, as I said before, I would encourage you to look at that on an annual basis Rather than a half on half basis, considering a bit of noise that goes through half on half.
Brilliant. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Anderson Chow from Jarden Group. Go ahead. Thank you.
Hi, good morning. Thank you. Just a quick question on the Vano tunnel distribution going to 2022. I wonder if there's a kind of a percentage of EBITDA to be likely to be paid out as distribution as a kind of a guidance?
So, what I guess the distributions that come out of Vano tunnel are a little similar to the way in which we think about things from Corporate level, they are at the moment looking to retain sufficient cover for their operating costs and risk within the business. So Probably around those 2 years' worth of operating cost the cost cash flow cover. So if you look at EBITDA and then obviously take out the relevant cost Come out through there, maintaining them their 2 years worth of cash cover at the moment that might change going into the future. Then that's the way I would encourage you to think about The distribution is coming out of Barno Tunnel. We've provided some guidance around that in February when we did And then the way in which the distributions have come out for this half and the $2,500,000 is exactly in accordance with that if you just pro rata the traffic.
Yes.
Okay. Got it. Thank you. And also just a Small question on the electric charging stations. Just curious, I mean, certainly we have installed a lot of them.
What's the usage? What's the actual usage currently looks like? Is it I think financially, it's not going to Make too much of a contribution, but I'm just curious how much of it is being used.
Thanks, Anders. The key here is that we have been rolling out charging stations At the levels we have based on demand. And so we've basically been putting them at a density that Basically, every 50 kilometers or so, there's a charging station on our network. The government's Objective, which they announced earlier this year to have all service areas on motorways With a charging station meant that the usage will Percentage usage utilization levels will be lower than they have been. However, the government is effectively Paying us to install those additional units.
So that effectively compensates us for It being supply led as opposed to demand led.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from William Park from Credit Suisse. Go ahead. Thank you.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just on traffic for Dollar Screen Ray, I appreciate that you've pointed out Employees going back to work and school season. How should we think about sort of traffic recovery profile versus
the chart that you provided? I mean, do you expect that
to step up This is the chart that you provided. I mean, do you expect that to step up in coming months So at a faster rate than what we have seen over the last 12 months?
William, it really comes down to Two issues. One is the rate at which schools go back to full in class learning. As I mentioned, vaccination programs are underway for 12 to 18 year olds As we speak within schools and the U. S. Is having now approved Pfizer is looking at Providing vaccination to even younger levels.
So that's, I think, a key driver. If children are back in school and the employer is seeking as We've sort of seen in the U. S. Press expressing a desire to get people back into the office, Then the combination of those two things will lead to higher traffic. So really, the 2 components are going to determine the rate Of increase in traffic on dollar screen line.
Yes. And just a final one, hopefully a quick one. Any Dates around discussions with AP. Blah concession extension at all?
Yes. So as we said at the year end results, a major Package of capital works is unlikely to be dealt with until following the presidential elections in 2022. But as was explained, I think, on the Asaj call today and Vonsi also mentioned it on their call, There is a management contract negotiation underway for a smaller package that can be dealt with By the regulator as opposed to the legislature. We have seen these packages and we Have a slide in the Macquarie conference data. I think it's Page 7 of that information, which Was done earlier in the year.
You can see the frequency of those management contracts, which is roughly Every 4 years. Last one was done in 2018, and it gave toll increases as compensation From 2019 through 2021. So as you can see, there's the opportunity to pull a package in With toll increases from 22, so that smaller sort of package may be negotiated prior to the election.
Thank you.
As we've explained, we're Very focused on riding the recovery from COVID through vaccination in Europe and North America, Which is freeing up those communities to be far more actively engaged. The traffic In July, August has been very encouraging, and we're seeing very positive signs. As I said, we are totally committed to the strategy we've outlined and we are focused on delivering further value to our investors as we move forward over the coming year. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you very much. That does conclude today's presentation. Thank you all for attending.
You may now disconnect your lines.